


Abandon Thought

by blue_wonderer, wonderingtheblue (blue_wonderer)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Angel!Barry, Barry loves his human, Day One: Supernatural/Fantasy AU, Hunter!Oliver, Hunter!Thea, Laurel is part of Team Free Will, M/M, Olivarry Week 2018, Oliver loves his angel, Oliver/Manpain, demon!Laurel, photoset + fic, set late season five in Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 20:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15299478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/wonderingtheblue
Summary: Oliver is supposed to be the vessel of Michael and Thea is destined to be the vessel of Lucifer. They've fought uselessly against destiny for months now, and Oliver is beginning to think that the only way to stop Lucifer is to say "yes" to Michael.The rest of Team Free Will, especially a certain angel, disagrees.





	Abandon Thought

**Author's Note:**

> Photoset by [suitsflash (bikeross)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikeross/pseuds/suitsflash)!!!!

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/141416597@N07/41614424620/in/dateposted-friend/)  


Oliver eases out of bed, careful not to wake Barry, who’s sleeping on top of the covers next to him. They’d been talking about their next move--or, well, Barry had been talking about their next move and Oliver had watched him talk. He hadn’t really listened, he’d already made up his mind to say “yes” to Michael at that point, not that he could tell Barry that. But Oliver had watched the long line of Barry’s legs as he paced the small guest bedroom of Lance’s farmhouse, watched slim wrists and graceful fingers as Barry gestured animatedly as he spoke. He’d caught himself looking at Barry more and more these past few months. Before, he would have looked away, would have denied himself, would have told himself that he was being stupid and shameful. But this time he knew that it was going to be the last he would see Barry as _Oliver_ , so he had indulged.

And then Barry had practically fallen asleep mid-sentence in the early afternoon, slumping over in a half-sitting position and Oliver had to lay him out on the bed and fit a pillow under his head. Barry’s been doing that, these past several weeks. Falling asleep with them in the motel rooms or in the car. It’d freaked both him and Thea out when it first happened. 

Barry didn’t use to need sleep.

Oliver runs a hand through his close-cut hair and scoffs quietly. An angel who has to sleep. An angel who sleeps because every minute he continues his one-man rebellion against his own brethren is another minute he’s cut off from Heaven, another minute he weakens as the Grace in him dwindles and dies. 

_And who’s fault is that?_

He pushes the thought away and stands, determinedly swallowing back a pit of dread unfurling in his gut. He had made up his mind, and that was it. He’d decided three hours ago, actually, he’d just had to wait until he could slip away. He’ll keep Thea safe. He’ll get Barry’s Grace back. He will fix everything and it will all, finally, end.

He’s so tired and empty. He just wants it to _stop_. 

He’s marching to his death, at least he’s pretty sure he is, and it’s disorienting that it feels just like any other hunt. He’s caught up in the mundane routine he’s done for years now--pulling on his boots, arming himself with the knives and guns and holy water. Then he quickly and quietly disarms himself, because where he’s going he doesn’t need weapons. If he’s successful, he won’t need anything. He’d be the weapon.

But, as he stands in the middle of the room, looking at the neat row of weapons discarded on the nightstand, he feels lightheaded and sick. Like he might float away. Shaking, he retrieves one knife, which he puts in his boot, and one gun, which he tucks against the small of his back, and he feels grounded again. 

He reaches for his wallet last, keeps enough cash to get him to where he’s going and leaves the rest on the nightstand. And then he just stands there, dumb and immobile, when he should be moving while he has the chance. Barry might sleep more often now, but he still needs far less than a normal human, and he still sleeps lighter than most (except maybe Oliver himself). And if he wakes up… if he or Thea wakes up, then they’d try to stop him. 

But, God help him, Oliver can’t bring himself to move. He can’t bring himself to look away from Barry. 

Barry is still fully clothed in his ridiculous Lady Gaga concert t-shirt and his bright red Converse shoes. His wrists are garishly covered in brightly colored rubber bracelets--his latest preoccupation from the wide and diverse curiosities human culture has to offer him. Oliver almost wants to laugh again when he sees the neon green “WWJD?” bracelet Thea had jokingly gotten him last week. He looks tired and unwashed, probably a lot like Oliver himself does, and yet Oliver finds himself breathless as the late afternoon sun filters through the thin, dusty curtain and saturates the room in a somber golden glow. All the light of the room seems drawn toward Barry, blanketing him with warmth, shining like a halo amidst the strands of his wild hair. His eyelashes look long and dark against his cheeks, and his freckles stand out in stark contrast to his pale skin. 

Oliver wants to walk over, wants to kiss those cheeks, wants to _finally_ lick into those lips, let himself sink into the light and warmth and goodness that Barry is—

Oliver turns and walks out, closing the door silently behind him. 

Thea’s asleep in the library, head pillowed on the very tomes and volumes she hates to read and study. A pyramid of seven empty energy drink cans is neatly stacked on the floor by her feet. There are dark circles under her eyes and her thin, pale fingers are curled with a white-knuckled grip around the demon-killing knife.

This is his biggest regret. Not saying bye to her, not making her understand that this is for her. That this is for the best. 

That she’ll be safe now. 

He wants to kiss her head. Wants to rouse her just enough to guide her, sleepy and childishly grumpily, to the couch. He wants to tuck her in under a pile of blankets like he did when she was small and Mom was on a hunt. He hasn’t done that for her in so long. Not since before she left for college. Not since everything started. 

But like Barry, she would wake too easily, and she would try to stop him. 

He hesitates and then slides his leather jacket off, carefully and quietly laying it on the desk beside her elbow. She’ll understand when she wakes up and sees it. 

Lance is easy enough to avoid. The older hunter is passed out on his ratty couch, an empty bottle of whiskey sitting next to him on the battered coffee table, gleaming in the dim light. Oliver hesitates, unsure what he could leave behind for the grizzled, broken hunter who took Oliver and Thea in after Mom died four years ago, who fed them and put up with them when they didn’t even want to put up with themselves. Who stood by them when they started the goddamned Apocalypse. 

There’s nothing he can give. There’s nothing he can give anyone, really. 

He’s careful to reset the alarms and traps as he leaves.

Oliver is halfway to the car when Laurel appears beside him, effortlessly matching his stride. The demon makes herself scarce when they hole up in Lance’s house, with good reason. The same reason that Lance tried to pickle himself in whiskey last night. Even now she resolutely doesn’t look behind her, doesn’t acknowledge the home of her childhood. 

There were some things too painful even for a demon. 

“You’re a dumbass,” she says, blonde hair whipping about her face and shoulders as the early evening winds pick up force. Dust stirs at their feet as they walk, dry grass clings to their shoes, and Oliver had never before thought about how dead and lonely the old farmland looks, but he finds himself thinking about it now. 

“Probably.” 

“Definitely. I can’t believe you’re doing this.” 

“You don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“Anyone with eyes knows what you’re doing,” she scoffs. 

“Barry didn’t.” 

“Well, that’s because he’s a lovesick moron.” 

He walks around to the driver’s side of the car and faces Laurel over the hood. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Laurel makes a supremely disgusted and impatient face. “No, I’m not here to play matchmaker for you too. I’m here to save the world and find my sister. And you’re screwing it up. Again.” 

“Look, this is the only way I see any of us getting out of this.” 

Laurel’s black demon eyes flicker like a dark, cold flame. “Wake up! You say yes, you become Michael’s meat suit, and he’ll burn you out and then burn down the world. Are you listening?” She slaps the hood of the car, making his head snap back up from where he had started opening the driver’s side door. “If you don’t care about that then at least care that Michael--you--will burn down Thea.” 

He looks steadily at her, waits as the slow realization dawns on her. Besides Thea, Laurel was one of the few beings who knew him inside and out. Who understood him in a way he sometimes didn’t even understand himself. 

But that went both ways. He knew how she would react. He had planned for it. 

“You think that Michael will spare Thea as some sort of condition of saying yes?” She spits out, incredulous. “You’ve been around Barry too long--you actually think all angels are like him when he’s the anomaly. You idiot, they want this to play out their way. He’s not going to spare her. There’s no ‘getting out’ of this for anyone.” 

“Well,” Oliver says with a shrug as he lowers himself into the car. “Maybe there shouldn’t be.” 

Laurel lets out a half-shriek, half-groan of frustration and throws open the passenger door. “You seem to think that I’m just going to let you go,” she snarls as she plops in next to him. “Like I won’t drag your ass to the Panic Room if I need to—” 

She freezes mid-sentence, eyes widening as she looks around her in panic. Her body jerks, like she’s trying to throw off invisible chains. “Oliver,” she seethes, looking at him with black, furious eyes and bared teeth. 

“Devil’s trap,” he explains, voice resolute. She lets out a wounded snarl and he knows that he’s broken some of the trust that’s slowly rebuilt between them this past year. 

In a few hours, it won’t matter. 

Still, he chokes on the apologies, has to swallow them back. “Thought you might try to stop me.”

He gets back out of the car, reaching in his pocket for Lance’s truck keys. He hesitates. When he imagined this scenario a few hours ago, he had a whole list of things he wanted to say to her. But now, in the face of her black eyes and her beauty and rage, everything he could say seems so small and pointless. 

“Goodbye, Laurel,” he says and walks away. 

###

Of course, it doesn’t go to plan. 

Oliver struggles uselessly in the hold of two angels as Darhk’s Enochian chant reaches a fever pitch. Just the sound of the ancient, alien words sinks like a leaden weight into the marrow of Oliver’s bones, makes his teeth ache, his vision swimming in hyper color static. Darhk stops, the words still ringing, and Oliver feels sick, tastes the bile in the back of his mouth. 

It’s too late. 

They paint an absurd tableau, six angels and two broken and bloody humans and one unconscious demon strewn out like rag dolls amidst the opulence of The Beautiful Room, the prison disguised as angel witness protection. Darhk chuckles softly, his unearthly pale blue eyes eerily deadened as he slowly steps to stand over Thea’s still-prone body. She weakly tries to roll away, but Darhk stops her escape by nonchalantly stepping onto her chest. Thea cries out, mostly in anger, he’s not putting too much weight on her yet, and scrabbles at his well-polished shoe with her fingers and nails, trying to dislodge him. 

In the ultimate show of just how freaking outclassed they are, Darhk completely ignores Thea’s struggle, doesn’t even sway when she beats at his leg with her fist and smiles pompously down at Oliver. “Thank you for your cooperation, Oliver,” Darhk says with a sardonic lilt. “Michael’s coming and this whole, miserable job will be done.” 

“Let her go,” Oliver says through his gritted teeth. He doesn’t know if it’s paranoia, but he swears he can already hear the distant rumble of Michael’s Voice approaching and _he has to get Thea out—_

He really thought that this would work. That he could save her. He thought he wouldn’t care after he said yes, he thought he’d be fine being Michael’s meat suit and playing out this farce with Lucifer riding Thea. 

And then Thea had burst in with Laurel, his little sister’s face stricken with worry and disappointment and so much naked terror that it had been like a douse of ice water to Oliver. And for one heart-stopping second as Laurel scattered the angels and Thea held her hand out for Oliver it looked like it might have worked. 

Then the door had sealed, and Thea and Laurel were half-dead, and Oliver was about to destroy the world. 

“Now, now, _Ollie_ , that’s not our bargain. Are you trying to get out of it already?” Darhk cackles, putting weight down on Thea’s chest. Her scream is cut off abruptly with her air as she claws anew at Darhk. “Typical. You say yes to Michael, let him wear you to prom, and then we leave your sister alone. _After_ we get her to say yes to Lucifer--which she’ll have to if she has any hope of saving her dear brother.” 

Oliver snarls, knees sliding across the bloody floor, barely feeling it when his left shoulder wrenches. “No,” he cries. “No, please, just let her go! Stop!” 

Thea’s grasp weakens and he can’t help but think that if she weren’t off the demon blood she’d have had a better chance--why had he been such a bastard about it? Her lips pale and tinged blue and blood seeps from her nose and he can’t help but remember her dying in his arms what feels like years ago in Cold Oak, when he held her until she turned cold, when he screamed until he was as empty and dark as the night around him. When he tucked her hair behind her ears and kissed her pale forehead and made his way to the crossroads because he couldn’t, he _couldn’t—_

This is his fault. Before, when he broke the first seal. Now, when he practically gift-wrapped him and Thea and the whole fucking world to the angels. It’s all about to end, he just wishes he could take Darhk and his superior smile with him. 

And then, between one breath and the next, Barry is there in the Beautiful Room, shoving an angel blade into the chest of one of Oliver’s captors. The other one lets go of Oliver, reaches for Barry, but even with his waning Grace Barry is too fast. In less time than it takes Oliver to blink, Barry is on Darhk, driving his blade towards the angel. Darhk barely manages to dodge and the blade cuts into his shoulder instead of his twisted heart. Still, the skirmish results in Darhk stumbling away from Thea, Barry pressing his assault. Thea coughs painfully, curling in on herself and trying to crawl away. Oliver dives for her, pulling her into his arms. 

“Come on,” he says, trying to put his body between her and the rest of the room. “Come on, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” she rasps, but throws her arms around Oliver and he wants to praise a God he doesn’t believe in, much less like, at the feel of her breathing against him. His eyes burn as he presses his face into her short curls. “That was… pretty stupid.” She side-eyes him and quirks her bloody lips. “I thought I had the market on that.” 

He chuckles and kisses her hair, eyes straying to Barry, who’s grappling with Darhk, and to Laurel, who’s awake and trying to make her way toward Oliver and Thea without being noticed. 

He’s got them back, but now he has to get them away before the angels overpower them. Before Michael comes and burns them to ash. 

Barry kicks off Darhk, but loses his grip on his angel blade in the process. It clatters to the floor near them and Thea lunges for it. 

“No!” Barry calls. “Go! Now!” 

“Kill him!” Darhk seethes at the remaining four angels, who all surround Barry. 

“Barry—” Oliver tries, but his voice is drowned out by the awful, reality-shattering song of Michael’s pending arrival. The floor starts to shake and the room begins to brighten with the archangel’s unfiltered Grace. 

“Go!” Barry shouts again. Oliver sees the angel pull up his Lady Gaga shirt, revealing a banishing sigil carved in his chest and torso. 

Oliver’s scream mingles with Thea’s as Barry activates it, taking him and the four angels away from the room, leaving only Darhk. 

“Go,” Oliver croaks, pushing Thea towards Laurel, towards the door that suddenly reappeared, even though their eyes are glued to the spot Barry had been just a moment before. “Go!” 

They half-stand, half-dive for the door. But Darhk is there faster than Oliver can even think. He knocks Oliver down, rage flushing his features as he crooks his fingers. Oliver screams as Darhk’s power rushes him, lights his insides on fire. Blood rushing up his throat and past his tongue, choking him.

Angry and desperate, he tries to drag himself forward, wanting nothing more than to tear Darhk apart with his own two hands, but only manages a few pathetic inches. Darhk sneers and kicks him savagely in the stomach, causing him to cry out and roll away from the door. 

“You’re staying here,” Darhk says, reaching a hand up to delicately touch around the ragged edge of the wound Barry had given him. “You’re going to do what you said you’d do--you’re going to say yes because I’ll torture your sister until you do. And then when Michael is wearing your meat suit and all that is left of Oliver Queen is a blithering pile of brain mush, he’s going to string your pretty little angel by his broken wings up where all of Heaven can see.” 

Then a blade explodes through Darhk's chest, and the light in him flickers like a flame sputtering on the wick.  
"You won't touch them," Thea snarls from behind Darhk as she twists the angel blade before letting go. Pale, sickly eyes widen in surprise and he sways for one heart-lurching second before crumbling to the floor, finally, blessedly, dead. 

Oliver gasps, his world righting again, clean air rushing into his lungs as Laurel and Thea grab at him, trying to get him to move. 

"Come on come on come on," Laurel’s chanting, eyes wild. "We needed to be gone five minutes ago.”

“--I'm not a goddamned angel,” Thea is ranting at him at the same time. “And I don't care about your consent I will knock you out and--" 

"No," Oliver rasps, getting to his feet. "No, let's go." 

He closes his eyes against the relieved, shaky sigh Thea breathes as they make it out of the Beautiful Room just minutes before a blinding light engulfs everything. 

###

It's nearly four in the morning when they stop running. They stop cutting their blind path across the Midwest and wind up at the Royal Inn in Atchison, Kansas, which actually makes it to the list of top ten worst motels Oliver's ever stayed in. Thea has managed to fall asleep and Laurel is with her, watching over her, as Oliver paces outside their motel room door, flipping the demon-killing knife in his hand. 

Barry banished himself. He banished himself to save Oliver and Thea. And Oliver's never thought of it before but where does an angel who's banished go? Back to Heaven, like a demon that's exorcised goes back to Hell? Did Barry banish himself into the very hands of the beings he rebelled against? How is Oliver supposed to help? Last time he looked, there wasn't a way to storm Heaven. 

(And there'd been a time, once, when he had looked. When he'd looked and looked and prayed and prayed and had got nothing but silence on the other end, had got nothing but more misery. That's why he'd laughed when Barry had been so insistent on finding God before, because there wasn't one, and if there was he was just another monster that could be hunted. Now, with even Barry's bright hope waning, with him possibly gone for good, Oliver wishes he could take back all of those things and had just let someone else believe, even when he couldn't.)

There's a flutter of wings, the smell of something in the air--ozone, maybe--all signs that it's Barry who just landed, half-illuminated by the orange lights of the parking lot. Before Oliver can think of anything to say, Barry’s approaching him in three quick strides, his expression in darkly comical contrast to his blood-soaked Lady Gaga shirt and torn jeans. He’s missing one of his Converse shoes and his sock, storming across the parking lot with one bare foot and Oliver’s stumbling forward like an idiot to meet him but he doesn’t care because that’s his beautiful angel and he’s back— 

Without ceremony, Barry takes him by the collar of his shirt and throws him several feet backward--and _painfully_ \--into the motel door. 

Oliver shakes his head, reeling, still wincing at the ache up his spine and shoulders when Barry is suddenly in his space, hands bunched in Oliver’s shirt again, pushing Oliver up until his toes are barely touching the ground. Oliver grimaces, preparing himself, thinking maybe this time Barry is going to send him through the door. Barry's face looks up at him in a thundercloud of seething anger. It's so easy to forget who Barry is, _what_ he is when he often times seems so naive and innocent, confused but childishly delighted by the world, nauseatingly optimistic in his band t-shirts and bright shoes and his ever-growing collection of neon rubber bracelets.

But this is the face of a soldier, the weight and countenance of a warrior. A warrior who nearly lost everything today because of Oliver. 

“I rebelled for _this_?” Barry hisses. The sheer power in his gaze, the other-ness emanating from his body zings through Oliver and rattles his teeth. Barry’s mere presence is giving Oliver’s equilibrium a swimming sense of vertigo and if Barry, who was slowly losing his Grace, could bend Oliver’s reality just by _existing_ , what then of the archangels?

(And why did Oliver ever think that he needed to protect Barry? That he was strong enough to?)

“I was cut off from Heaven, from my family, from my home--I’ve risked everything for you just for you to get scared and throw it away?” 

“I was protecting you and Thea—” 

“You were giving up!” Barry roars. “You lost faith—” 

Oliver pushes against Barry, though it’s a little like pushing against a cement wall. “Faith in what? In the God you can’t find?” 

“Faith in me!” Barry says. “In Thea! In Laurel! In _yourself_!” 

The fight leaves Oliver all of a sudden and his arms slip from Barry to hang uselessly at his sides. 

“Barry,” he laughs, though it sounds a lot more broken than he means it to. His throat is tight and he’s so tired. “What good will faith do? They’re so much bigger.” 

Barry’s face gradually softens and he loosens his ironclad hold on Oliver but doesn’t let go. He’s still unbearably close, smelling of blood and storms and looking so, so beautiful Oliver can hardly breathe. 

“Are they?” Barry asks. “You two--humans, who have no power in a world of angels and demons and monsters--have defied Death and Hell for each other. You have a demon who turned good for you--you have an angel who rebelled for you. Do you understand that, Oliver? Not for the sake of humanity, not for the sake of the world--I did it for _you_.” 

Oliver should look away, he wants to look away, laid bare and utterly ashamed by the belief--by the devotion--in those fathomless eyes but he’s also selfish, because if this is the final straw, if this what makes Barry leave him--leave them--then he can’t look away. 

Besides Thea (and he should have admitted that earlier, shouldn’t have let her think the demon blood and the Lazarus Pit changed any of that, and he’ll tell her first thing in the morning he swears he swears), Barry’s the last good thing left on this earth. If Barry leaves for good (like Dad, like Mom, like Sara, like they all leave, like they all _should_ ), Oliver wants to burn his angel into his memory, for however long he might live to have it. 

A movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention, and Barry’s as well. They both lean over to see Laurel and Thea with the curtains thrown aside, staring out the grimy motel window at them. Thea’s looking tired and irritated, but Laurel’s eating from a large red carton of McDonald’s french fries (and, OK, where and when did she even get those?), looking immensely entertained. 

“Do you mind?” Oliver glares at them. Laurel shrugs and shakes her head, merrily stuffing more fries in her face while making a “no, do go on” gesture. Thea rolls her eyes and reaches for the curtain, and she must be tired if she’s more interested in sleep than in watching the drama unfold, and mouths “don’t kill him” at Barry before closing the curtain again.

Oliver waits a few seconds before meeting Barry’s gaze again. “I told Thea today that I--that I wouldn’t--that we wouldn’t give in. We wouldn’t say yes. We’d screw destiny since it’s so intent on screwing us.” 

For one long moment Barry’s eyes bore into his, searching out his soul, and Oliver can do nothing but offer it up as the empty and dark and sick thing that it is. 

And then Barry lets out a breath and the storm recedes and all that’s left is this tired, bloody soldier with only a tiny army left to protect. He doesn’t let Oliver go completely like he’s afraid to let go, but he gives Oliver room to stand on his own. 

“I--Good,” Barry says, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. “That--that settles that, I guess.” 

Oliver can’t help it. He leans his head back against the door to their motel room and laughs softly. He steps to the side, giving Barry a little room to lean against the door as well, facing Oliver. 

“I’m glad you and Thea are OK.” 

“It doesn’t feel like you are,” Oliver jokes, rotating his shoulder. Barry averts his eyes, long lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones. 

“I don’t even think I’m sorry about that,” Barry confesses, looking up again with a crooked smirk tugging at this lips.

“I deserved it,” Oliver sighs, leaning his head back again. 

“You did,” Barry agrees. “Well, you don’t. Neither you or Thea deserve any of this.” 

Maybe Oliver didn’t at one time, but he doesn’t say that. 

“I thought you were gone for good--the sigil, I mean. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to come back if they would catch you. How did you find your way back so fast?” 

Barry reaches out, strokes lightly over Oliver’s shoulder, over the handprint that’s still there from when Barry dragged him out of Hell. He feels a shiver rock through him that has nothing to do with the coolness of the late night. 

“Oh,” Oliver says. 

“Yeah,” Barry tilts his head. “Even I can’t explain it. But I think I’ll always be able to find you, eventually.” 

Oliver reaches up, takes Barry’s hand in his, lays out his palm and traces the lines etched into soft skin. Next to his sun-darkened calloused one, it looks frail. “And after?” Oliver asks softly, not looking up. 

“After? After what?” 

“After everything,” Oliver says, looking up. “After we win.” 

A slow smile blooms small and soft on Barry’s face. One by one, he wraps his fingers in Oliver’s. “I’ll find you.”

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> This started with the awesome photoset by [suitsflash (bikeross)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikeross/pseuds/suitsflash), who agreed to let me write a little something that was inspired by it. Thank you to [SophiaCatherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine) for the beta! Any remaining mistakes are mine. :)


End file.
